


Medical Intervention

by Lerry_Hazel



Category: Smallville
Genre: Kid Fic, Lex's history of head injuries, M/M, Post-Rift, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-01 14:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13296873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lerry_Hazel/pseuds/Lerry_Hazel
Summary: The selected few aware of Conner’s true origin usually assume he was meant to be the Luthor heir with extra alien powers; but the truth is, there is more than one bloodline-obsessed father with imperial ambitions in the story – and scientific approach is not exactly Lionel’s style.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The story would have been longer if I possessed the necessary talent and patience to describe developing relationship; those who do are therefore welcome to any ideas they might find appealing.

*****

******

*******

Clark was so bored he wished he could fast-forward through time as well as space.

It happened every few months. As soon as the excitement of watching Superman vanquish another ridiculous but deadly green-glowing thing died out, the good people of Metropolis, particularly those who hadn't been in any actual danger of losing life or limb, would start to wonder who was going to pay for fixing their damaged property and cleaning debris off their streets. The Mayor's office would organize a press-conference to basically let insurance companies, City Council officials and minor landlords explain why none of them were responsible for Superman-induced damage (that they were very careful not to call "Superman-induced damage", lest he took offence and decided not to save anyone the next time). After talking in circles for about forty minutes, somebody would inevitably bring up Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen and their convenient readiness to clean up after the respective vigilantes of Gotham and Starling City(*), and a ridiculous pretext would be hastily made up to lure Metropolis' own resident billionaire to the meeting.

Lex Luthor would deign to make a regal appearance, surrounded by his customary entourage of Mercy, Hope, PR manager, accountant, a couple of lawyers and a bunch of journalists normally considered too serious to bother with a mere Superman scoop. Lex would listen to all the laments about unforeseeable circumstances and upstanding citizen's duty with a smirk that never failed to make Clark nearly lose control of his heat vision - and not because of anger; then he would politely but firmly explain how, by yearly donating millions to Metropolis University and Metropolis General Hospital, being involved in a dozen charities and having LuthorCorp Security patrol areas adjacent to his property in order to compensate for lack of police officers whose number the city authorities had significantly cut down relying on Superman instead, he, Lex Luthor, coincidentally one of the largest employers in the country, considered his civic duty adequately fulfilled. Then some young and eager Lois Lane wannabe who didn't know when to shut up would gleefully point out how Daily Planet had repeatedly exposed LuthorCorp's charitable activities as a cover for one nefarious plan or another, giving Lex a perfect opening to remind the people how all so-called evidence of his alleged misdeeds had been obtained by a person that lacked not only any official authority (and, presumably, American citizenship), but basic respect to private property, which LuthorCorp could, of course, afford to replace on regular basis, but others were not so lucky, as indicated by the situation in question, - and, voila, by the time of the next elections the 7% of the county that weren’t already directly or indirectly owned by Lex would wish they were.

Today shouldn't have been any different. LuthorCorp's annoyingly efficient emergency response team had already sealed the wall of "The Catevari Project"(**) headquarters Superman had broken through in order to save Charlie Fogerty, who turned out to be perfectly capable of constantly emitting green kryptonite radiation all on her own _unless_ she was hooked up to the IV LuthorCorp scientists had concocted for her, as the girl's mother had explained while personally - and sometimes literally - kicking his alien ass out of the facility.

As for the school two blocks away, Clark could attest Superman hadn't been anywhere near it. The Headmistress currently pleading its case had to know it too, as her presentation involved very few solid facts and a lot of adorable kiddie pictures, and if she had taken it directly to Lex he would have probably built them a perfectly new school just because he could; but now there was no chance he would donate as much as a box of pencils, as there was nothing Lex hated more than lying (as Clark knew all too well).

Except the way Lex's lips were firmly pressed together indicated pain, not annoyance, and if Clark doubted his own ability to still read Lex accurately, he only had to look at how closely and protectively the two loyal bodyguards were hovering over him.

Lex's complexion had taken on the just-a-little-too-prefect shade that used to mysteriously appear on sadly numerous occasions when Lex had been trotted by a hostile mutant at the end of a hard day, spent half the night cleaning up the mess and then made a three-hour drive to Metropolis to look reassuringly presentable for the morning news. Switching to X-ray vision, Clark discovered that underneath heavy-duty makeup Lex's face was lifelessly grey, and deeper down - Clark had never bothered to figure out how the inside of human body should look beyond checking for broken bones, but he was relatively sure a firework going off inside one's head was not normal.

Clark was out of his chair in the back row and on the stage, jacket and shirt nearly torn in half and slacks still on, before Lex even started to fall. By the time cameras went off and the first "Hey, was that Superman?" exclamation sounded, they were landing at the Fortress. 

 *******      

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (*) …or wherever the Smallville version of (Green) Arrow is from :-)  
> (**) According to the 2000 TV series ‘The Invisible Man’, from where I stole the idea along with the character’s name, in Ancient Rome Catevari were children who were fed small doses of poison from infancy and till they became poisonous themselves.   
> And, while we're at it, the whole Smallville thing? - Not mine either!


	2. Chapter 2

*******

Lex woke up blissfully free of the headache that had been his constant companion for the better part of two months. The bliss, however, was short-lived, as he realised that instead of a hospital where he should have ended up after presumably passing out in the middle of the City Council meeting, he was lying on the sofa in his own study with no memory of getting there. A brief check of his phone confirmed that he was, in fact, once again missing over thirty-six hours of his life.

Mercy appeared, as usual, promptly and silently, and dutifully informed him that in the meantime Clark's spandex-clad alter-ego had managed to open its big mouth and babble that Lex had been whisked away due to medical emergency, Lois Lane had coughed up a duly convincing exposé on how he was prepared to let a school squished between his two "probably child-unfriendly" facilities fall into pieces just so he could grab the land for himself, an animal rights activist had broken into one of their low-priority labs and got herself bitten by a green glowing rabbit, and the contract with the Japanese was most likely unsalvageable. Work now, existential angst later.

Lex offered the city one of the buildings Clark and Lois had started sniffing around before he could even start converting it into a secret lab in exchange of the tiny school yard, so he could finally complete the fence around his research complex, and a small package of fiscal privileges; he graciously refrained from pressing charges against the intruder and provided a medical team to treat her bite and coincidentally observe the effects of indirect meteor exposure; he dodged questions about his health, implying that Kryptonians, apparently, were unfamiliar with the concept of hangover, and what made a crime-fighting alien qualified to diagnose a medical emergency anyway?; he promised the Japanese all sorts of bonuses on their next deal, and by the time he got back from Tokyo he had been awake for nearly forty-eight hours and ready to go for another twenty-four, as if he were a teenager again who didn't even realise how much damage his body was patching up before he became aware of it. Time to get poked and probed - again.

*****

The three doctors that had previously informed him there was nothing they could do still could do nothing but confusedly confirm that the time-bomb inside his brain was gone. The two doctors previously unfamiliar with his case found no reason for concern and clearly thought he was making it up when he mentioned repeated concussions, ECT and being shot in the head. One of them even suggested it must have been a miracle with the sort of patronizing smile that made Lex want to arrange for a couple of inconsistencies to be discovered in the good doctor's prescription book. Lex knew perfectly well where every "miracle" in his life had come from, and what sort of price they usually had attached. So he took a deep breath and forced himself to remember.

With surprising clarity he hadn't experienced since his stint in Belle Reve, Lex recalled waking up in a blindingly white room, strapped to a semblance of medical bed, a thin ray of lime-green light whirling around his head, sending painful impulses inside his skull; he remembered Clark, pale and wide-eyed, still wearing ugly baggy slacks and a torn shirt over his ridiculous primаry-coloured costume, clutching Lex's hand as he alternated between begging Lex to lie still and hold on and demanding to be told what exactly was happening; a snooty disembodied voice offered an answer liberally laced with tricky scientific terms obviously meant to further frustrate Clark, who couldn't possibly understand them; but Lex could.

He could, Lex realised, as he grabbed his laptop and started to type frantically before the memory could fade away; and if the process could be recreated without resorting to sophisticated alien technology, "brain damage" would soon be thing of the past.

*****

It took over a month to figure out the specifics and two more to actually build the device. Lex was ecstatic. Finally he was doing something he had always wanted, not what he had to, and the results could be measured by actually making things better, not by finding a way to probably kill his former best friend one day or to promise terrified teenagers who had just lost a parent, a sibling or a friend, that he could indeed lock them up forever so that they would never hurt anyone again. Lex worked around the clock gathering resources, redistributing funds, covering tracks, updating security and stashing dozens of backup copies of data to fall back on when the Man in Tights inevitably showed up to save his precious alien technology from savage humans who weren't ready to handle the responsibility, or something equally hypocritical. However, Superman didn't show up: not when they killed two dozen of mice trying to compensate for Lex's accelerated healing factor, not when the first human volunteer died, not when vague details of the project were leaked to press, not even when LexCorp went public and started jumping through bureaucratic hoops. So, when Metropolis General started independent clinical trials of the new blunt force trauma treatment, Lex's scientists went on to contemplate its further application to dealing with degenerative diseases, and the red-and-blue thunder still hadn't descended, Lex decided to confront his nemesis personally; which proved to be easier said than done, as increasingly rare Superman sightings had completely stopped about a week ago, - around the time Clark Kent quit his job at Daily Planet and vacated his apartment. Lois Lane, a glorified stalker of the former and the "trusted partner" of the latter, claimed (in separate statements) to have no idea where either of them might have gone. Good thing Lex knew exactly where to look.

*******


	3. Chapter 3

*******

The lands had been long rented out. The yellow house looked empty and uninviting. Lex walked right past it and cautiously climbed the once familiar ratty stairs to the upper level of the abandoned barn. The original Fortress of Solitude looked strangely uninhabitable, despite still having most of the furniture and having been recently cleaned of years of dust. The no-longer-a-schoolboy sitting stiffly on the old coach clutching a bundle of Martha Kent's fluffy quilt looked ready to bolt.

'Hello, Clark,' Lex intoned, placing himself strategically in the doorframe, even though his mostly human body didn't really present much of an obstacle for a super-strong alien.

'Lex,' the alien in question sighed, sounding simultaneously relieved and defeated. 'How did you find me?'

'Are you kidding? It was the first place I looked. Didn't particularly feel like a trip to the Arctic if I could help it.'

The once again red-flannel-clad shoulders tensed reflexively:

'You know?'

Lex felt a familiar surge of anger flaring up:

'Of course, I know, Clark. It's a big alien structure in the middle of an icy desert. Very hard to miss once you know where to look.'

'But when did you - oh, well, Chloe, Alaska, frostbite. Should have - not that it matters anymore. You're not holding a huge lump of kryptonite, so I guess you are not here to talk to my alter-ego. How are you feeling, by the way?'

'Never better. My sincerest thanks to you and your pet AI. And yes, I do remember what happened, but that's a discussion for another day. Today I was going to talk about what's going on with you, but now it seems fairly obvious,' Lex pointedly nodded at the bundle. 'Would you introduce us?'

'That's Conner,' Clark whispered, lovingly caressing the tiny arm that was trying to wiggle out of the quilt. 'I suppose you would prefer Julian, or maybe not, considering, and would expect me to go for "Jonathan", but I doubt he would have approved, and, anyway, Kryptonians apparently had a very different approach to having and naming children, and Jor-El had been calling him Kon-El while speaking only Kryptonian, and I don't want to confuse him further, so Conner it is, Con for short, and he is about to wake up, and we're out of formula, and can you hold him for a moment? Don't worry, you literally can't hurt him.'

Before Lex could protest, let alone wonder why his preferences had been considered in naming his former friend's child, Clark let the quilt fall on the sofa, shoved the resulting naked baby into Lex's arms and was gone in a blur of colour.

The baby looked nothing like Lex expected. First of all, he was far too big for a newborn - big enough to be at least a few months old, although kind of thin for his size. And secondly, he looked nothing like Clark. The eyes studying Lex with calm curiosity were steel-grey, and combined with transparently white skin and a single perfect ringlet of fiery-red hair on the very top of the head, formed a suspiciously familiar picture.

'You owe me an explanation,' Lex informed the unfortunate parent, who had just reappeared with three bottles of formula and heated one of them with a short blast of heat vision.

'It's kind of a long story.'

'Well, I for one am in no hurry,' Lex answered regally, as he took the bottle out of Clark's hands giving it a suspicious sniff and carefully checking the temperature before offering it to Conner. 'So tell me, why are you hiding in the remnants of your family home with _my_ son?'

'You know there is a built-in AI in my Fortress of Solitude? Not this one, of course, the one in the Arctic,' Clark specified unnecessarily.

Lex nodded without taking his eyes of Conner, who was eagerly slurping his lunch, unconcerned of being away from his primary caretaker.

'What you might not know,' Clark continued, 'is that the AI has the personality of Jor-El, my biological father. He has all those weird ideas about preserving Kryptonian legacy, and most of the time I just ignore him, but the time I brought you there I was not in my right mind because you were dying, and - well, I told Jor-El he could do whatever he wanted as long as he saved you, and I guess he took me up on it.'

'And he, what, made you have my child?' Lex exclaimed, half incredulously and half reverently.

'Technically, Conner is you clone infused with my abilities,' Clark explained. Jor-El says our genetic codes are "highly compatible" and you demonstrate "adequate intelligence and ambition". Guess he saw another chance to have "the Last Son of Krypton" strive to conquer the Earth. There was a pod, precise development-stimulating algorithms, and a lot of stories about Krypton's glorious past - told in Kryptonian. No travelling through outer space, thankfully, but still, I had to get him out of there. Even though I have no idea what to do next.

'Is that why he is naked?' Lex asked sarcastically, shoving the gobsmacked

litany of "I am a father - my child is half-alien - Clark and I have a son together!" to the back of his mind to sort through later, and choosing to concentrate on the most pressing needs.

'He is going to look three years old in a couple of weeks,' Clark replied miserably, taking the once again sleepy baby from Lex and carefully wrapping the quilt back around him. 'I can't be seen buying bigger clothes literally every day, I can't leave him long enough to shop in another city and I don't want to run, let alone fly with him, so - where are you going?'

Lex was not going anywhere. He was standing at the top of the stairs, holding the two extra formula bottles and glaring at Clark expectantly:

' _We_ ,' he emphasized in his trademark "I-am-a-Luthor-obey-me" voice, ‘are going to the castle.'

'Why?' Clark asked for appearances' sake, already on his feet and following.

'Because hotels are full of paparazzi, and all my property in Metropolis needs to have the security systems dismantled before a half-Kryptonian baby can be brought there, because I hold LexCorp Annual Christmas Ball in the castle, so it has a number of caretakers who keep it habitable, and because, although Dad got rid of Julian's things, my nursery is still there and should help us get by without any suspicious shopping sprees. Now, put on the seatbelt, hold onto Conner properly and pray we won't be pulled over for not having a baby car seat.' 

*******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, technically, that's the end of the story. There will, however, be a few bonus chapters to let the characters talk about things I'd like them to discuss, even though it does very little for the plot. 
> 
> Anyone wishing to properly describe Lex's quest to conquer Kryptonian medicine, Clark's trials and tribulations of discovering Conner and getting him away from Jor-El and Clex joint road to parenthood are still welcome to the glorified plot-bunny ;-)


	4. Bonus chapter ONE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lex and Clark talk about when it all went wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is literally nothing going on in this chapter - they're just sitting and talking.
> 
> Also, I REALLY DON'T LIKE LOIS LANE, and it shows. I hope people who are reading Clex won't be offended on her behalf, but if unflattering portrayal of this character bothers you, "proceed with caution" :-D.

*******

The gardens were indeed immaculately kept, but the castle itself looked even more looming and somber with most of the art off the walls and furniture under creepy white covers, with only Lex's office (and, presumably, Lex's bedroom) kept properly dust-free and usable just in case. Pulling his feet on the luxurious leather coach that seemed to still remember the outline of his favourite pose and watching Lex furiously typing something at his posh glass desk, Clark felt at home for the first time since his mother had decided they weren't keeping the farm.

Finally, Lex snapped the laptop shut and turned his chair sideways to better see Conner romping in his old crib by the huge stain-glass window, now properly dressed in a little fluffy jumpsuit and clutching a bright plastic truck in one hand and an unidentifiable stuffed animal in the other.

'Would you have ever told me if I hadn't come looking for you myself?' the new-found father asked gravely.

'Of course, I would!' Clark assured him hotly. 'If nothing else, Lois is already suspicious, she'll never buy I just went and got myself a kid, let alone a three-year-old one. She'll start digging, and she'll find nothing, no trace of record, and I can't even offer a DNA sample to prove he's mine. Plus, I might be a social nobody, but the Luthors have been the royal family of Metropolis for a long time. The Inquisitor published your birth announcement and extensively covered your first birthday party, both with photos. People will start realising Conner looks just like you sooner, rather than later, but that's not the point. What matters is that I know how much family means to you, I wouldn't dare to deprive you of it.'

'Then why didn't you come to me sooner? You've had him for what, a week?'

'I wanted to, I swear, even before I found out about Conner, but I couldn't, literally. Your entire building is drenched in kryptonite, and when you go out your schedule is so tight I have to wonder which one of us doesn't truly need to sleep, and I didn't think approaching you in public was such a good idea after what happened - '

'Yes,' Lex hissed in a way that implied he was too proud of his self-control to shout, 'I've been wondering what possessed you to open your big mouth.'

'Rumors were getting out of control, I had to offer some explanation.'

'Why, you never bothered before?'

'Well, before it seemed pretty obvious to me. You planned something that could potentially give you even more power than you already had, I either got Superman to openly sabotage it or Lois to snoop around, and there was another "Nefarious Luthor Scheme Uncovered; buy Daily Planet for more details". People deserved to know the whole truth before accepting your "good deeds" with no regard of potential consequences.'

Lex scoffed.

'Yeah, sounds pretty hypocritical of me,' Clark continued sheepishly, 'but I genuinely believed I was doing the right thing.'

'What changed?' Lex intoned, mocking and a little bitter, rather than truly interested.

'Nothing. And that's what made me think,' Clark answered, sounding lost. 'You see, I didn't exactly - I mean, you didn't have time to wait for an ambulance, and no hospital would have helped, but the point is I wasn't thinking. You were dying, and I was terrified, I couldn't lose you, so I grabbed you and took you to the Fortress. On our way back I vaguely expected police sirens and kryptonite bullets, but you were going to be OK, so the rest didn't truly matter - until I gave Mercy and Hope what could have been your body, and people just cheered. It was so surreal, and I tried to imagine the situation from an impartial point of view, and what I came up with was that some random hopefully blue-and-red blur (I didn't have time to fully change) had appeared in the middle of the City Hall, kidnaped a prominent citizen and disappeared for over 24 hours, - and nobody cared, not even your own bodyguards. Apparently, people had been just standing there, waiting for me to come back and gossiping about what you had done this time "to piss off Superman". And the theories were getting so outrageous, I couldn't just ignore them, so I scrabbled for a neutral explanation, and I guess I projected Smallville, where, which is actually terrible on its own, you being mysteriously injured had stopped making the news, so I hoped they would leave it alone, at least until you made your own statement. Instead, I went to work and everyone was talking about hacking databases and breaking into City Archives and Lois was boasting she knew just whom to ask. I wasn't overly worried: I knew she wouldn't find anything in your medical history, no matter what connections she had. But then she cornered me the next time I went out as Superman, and - she didn't demand, or cajole, or trick - she just _expected_ me to tell her everything. I said we had had a private discussion that was none of her concern, and she basically told me that in the eyes of Daily Planet you were public enemy number one not entitled to any privacy, and if Superman disagreed she could just as well stop hailing him as an enigmatic hero.

'If I truly believed you were aiming for glory, I would point out that every single paper in Metropolis would gladly take over official Superman Watch,' Lex injected contemptuously.

'I guess,' Clark shrugged. 'Anyway, she didn't stop writing about me and she didn't stop digging and getting caught in the most dramatic fashion possible, and I kept responding to her cries for help as a Pavlov’s dog till she openly asked me to get through a wall when I was about to calmly carry her out of a window and it occurred to me you wouldn't have a famous journalist killed on your property, so summoning me was less about fear for her life and more about hoping I would grab some incriminating evidence on my way in or out, like I used to. So I, as in Superman, warned her that from now on I wasn't going to drop everything and rush to her side unless there was an actual gun pointed at her, and she started to complain to me, eh, Clark Kent (isn't it a little schizophrenic?) that Superman was getting uncooperative and surely "Luthor has something on him". She was ecstatic when word got out you were working on something brain damage related. Told everyone that was it, Superman must be mind-controlled. Ordered me, Clark, not Superman, to find her every single little bit of information about it. It took me a while to put things together, but once I did I felt like such an idiot: all this years I had been sitting on a bunch of awesome technology and it never even occurred to me to share it with the world just because I automatically assumed it was too advanced for our science. I tried to talk Jor-El into sending you the relevant information, but he insisted you were doing pretty well on your own. Anyway, I told Lois you weren't aiming for mind control, but for an honest scientific breakthrough. She literally laughed at me and said all your projects looked pretty good on paper and it was our mission to discredit them before ignorant public started eating from you hand.’

'Is that why you left the Planet?’ Lex asked, his tone carefully neutral.

'Partly. Then there were a few bad days where it felt like Clark Kent didn't have a life anyway, so why not just become Superman full time, and then I found out about Conner and staying away from mass-media became a must. I did, however, re-read everything I'd ever written about LuthorCorp, and finally saw what you'd been telling me for years. I had either taken your good ideas and twisted them around, blowing every little thing that could go wrong out of proportion, or taken your kryptonite-related projects and all but pointed my finger, screaming "See? Dubious and immoral!", as if I'm not the one who inevitably ends up beating people whose only fault was being there in time to witness my dramatic arrival on Earth.'

Conner woke up fussing and Lex gracefully rose from his sit to change him before he could even start crying. Clark heated another bottle of formula and handed it over with a sad smile.

'Anyway,' he continued, 'it made me wonder since when I stopped looking at you as if you'd hung the Moon and started looking for twisted subplots.'

'Well, there was the secret room,' Lex murmured vaguely, his eyes never leaving Conner snuggled contentedly to his side.

'No, that was not it,' Clark assured him. 'I mean, Chloe tried to use Levitas to forcedly pry my secrets out of me, not to mention all the Wall-of-Weird thing, and Pete once knowingly stripped me of my inhibitions to make me literally do tricks, just for fun, and at the end of the day they were still my best friends. In fact, between your wedding, and my stupid plan to get rid of Jor-El, and mom's miscarriage I barely spared the room a second thought. But when I ran away I could have run to the other side of the country, I could have spent every night in a different state and no one would have been able to find me, but I ran no further that Metropolis. And I remember standing there, watching your funeral from afar, and thinking that was it, now I could leave. But then dad found me, and dragged me home although it nearly killed him, and once I wasn't drugged out of my mind anymore, I felt so guilty, and I vowed to become an ideal son, and it shouldn't have been all that difficult, considering our friendship had been the only thing we ever disagreed upon and you were gone, except suddenly you were not, and you had been through hell and I couldn't just abandon you, even if I wanted to, and I still did NOT - and for a while I thought it might all work out, because you were too busy getting your life back to ask uncomfortable questions, and dad couldn't exactly bring out the "Evil Luthor" card after what you did for the farm, but then there was Belle Reve, and dad was suddenly holding the "Crazy Luthor" card, and I knew I should have still helped you, but - '

'Forget it, Clark,' Lex sighed, 'there was nothing you could have done.'

'What are you talking about? I just stood there and let them hurt you! If I just - '

'Well, it would have been nice to know you valued my continuous well-being over your secrets,' Lex smiled bitterly, 'but in the end it wouldn't have changed anything. Had you whisked me away before I was taken to Belle Reve or helped me break out, I would have forever stayed a dangerous lunatic on the run from my long-suffering well-meaning father; that is, if I had managed to safely metabolize the drugs and snap out of my psychotic episode on my own in the first place.'

'You may be right,' Clark admitted, sounding no less upset, 'but the thing is, when I made the decision to run away and leave you behind, I wasn't thinking of how at that point you might have genuinely needed psychiatric help, drugs or no drugs; or even of how you were in no condition to willingly keep my secret; I was thinking of how dad would never forgive me if I let you see my powers. By the time I finally gathered the courage to do something it was too late.

'When I saw them dragging your body off that awful ECT machine I thought they had killed you. I was so horrified I - ' Clark swallowed convulsively and shook his head. 'And the only consolation my parents could offer me was that at least my secret was safe. I promised myself then and there I would tell you everything. But there was no privacy in the asylum, and then your dad took you to Metropolis, and then you were running against my dad in the elections, and then I realised there would always be a good reason not to admit I was too much of a liar to trust in our friendship. The next time someone tried to show me your supposed misdeeds, I grabbed the idea like a straw. Like if you were capable of bad things, maybe holding back on you hadn't been such a bad idea. Eventually I must have convinced myself proving your evilness would mean you somehow retroactively deserved all those sufferings I inflicted upon you. All those secrets I didn't have to keep, all those lies I didn't have to tell, all those favours I had no right to demand. All those times I proudly "gave you a chance when no one else would" only to shove it to you face later. All the pain I could have spared you.'

'If it makes you feel better, I don't remember any of it,' Lex deadpanned.  

'What?'

'The ECT erased all my personal memories, but, thankfully, not my skills or personality traits. I woke up with no idea who I was or where I was, but I knew I wouldn't want to act without a solid plan and I knew how to trick the machinery into not showing any significant changes. I had spent over a day listening, analysing and putting pieces together before I let anyone see me conscious and coherent. By that time I knew my name was Lex Luthor and my father would come to tell me I had been stupid enough to have another overdose, even though he had personally ordered to have my brain fried. I knew the private doctor he so generously provided had orders not to help me, but to keep me docile and complacent. And then I had you, who called himself my best friend despite obvious difference in age and social standing, but who kept blatantly lying to me and trying very unsubtly to find out how much I remembered from before my "accident". As soon as I finally convinced dad to take me home and got to my notes and safekeeps, I knew dad was determined not to let me have my own company I had been trying to get back - and before you consider lying one more time “for my own good”, afterwards I did discover I had apparently been in possession of evidence of his participation in a conspiracy to murder his own parents, but it is gone so it doesn't matter anymore.' Lex's computer gave a soft ping, and Lex rose to put now sleeping Conner back to the crib, before turning his attention to the screen. 'It didn't take me long to find out what dad was holding over the doctor's head. You, on the other hand, - I didn't have any blackmail material on you, which suggested I had truly consider you a friend, but your little lies and evasions were so obvious it was embarrassing, and I couldn't help wondering whether I had been desperate enough for companionship to willingly ignore it or if my father had gotten to you while I was indisposed. When you went public about your alien ancestry I was somehow relieved to see that was the secret you'd been hiding.'

'You knew? Even back then?'

'Of course I knew, Clark. You started wearing glasses the day _after_ you made the big announcement. You repeatedly leave piles of clothes behind a nearby bush to fly off to the other side of the world at a moment notice. And your idea of keeping a low profile is hiding in your parent's barn and stealing supplies from a supermarket two towns over.

'I did not - ' Clark started, but Lex turned his laptop around with a flourish to show a short video of a blur flying between shelves grabbing formula, bottles and diapers.

'You were saying?'

'I am saying I didn't steel,' Clark replied sullenly. 'I left them some money.'

'From an ATM across the street,' Lex concluded, bringing up another security camera feed. 'Brilliant. Any more surprises you left lying around for metahuman haters?'

'"Homeland" in Grandville,' Clark admitted miserably. 'I didn't use any powers and didn't even go in, but an old lady gave me a 20-minute lecture when I tried to leave Conner in the car to get some food.'

'So, on top of everything else, you went into hiding hungry.'

'I - don't really need to eat.'

'That's precisely why you had just devoured ten sandwiches,' Lex replied, pressing the keys with a little more force than necessary.

'And that makes you angry?' Clark demanded incredulously.

'I'm not angry,' Lex shook his head, 'I'm awed by your sheer dumb luck.' The sole camera on the supermarket's parking lot only registered the cars coming in and out, and Lex was suddenly struck with a disproportional urge to laugh. 'I believe we could all use some sleep.' He carefully shut the laptop down and went to once again extract Conner from his crib. 'You coming?'

*******


	5. Bonus chapter TWO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Lex talk about what is going to happen now. Still no action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold me not missing an update although Christmas (well, in my case, New Year) break is over and homeschooling is apparently a thing that needs to happen at ass-o'clock in the morning.

*******

The nightlight Lex had produced for Conner's sake was giving everything an unreal glow, or maybe it was the situation itself. Clark made sure to stay atop of the covers, even though the bed was huge, but Lex was not dying, and talking to him again, and willing to take his guard down enough to fall asleep in his presence, and the son that, according to Jor-El, they could only have with each other was snuffling softly in his crib, and for the first time since he had discovered his alien nature Clark felt he was (almost) exactly where he wanted to be - and he had no idea where to go from there.

'Quit brooding, Clark, and get some rest. We have to get up in four hours as it is.'

'What for?' Clark asked uncertainly. Lex rolled on his back and forced his eyes open with considerable effort.

'Well, you need to run to California for cash and to Alaska for diapers - or the other way around, to get the two boxes you call your lifetime possessions from the farm, get Mercy with my suit, my briefcase and other things I need from Metropolis here before I leave for the day, and then to find our solar-powered son a nursery with a very big window - preferably on the same floor we are. I need to rearrange my schedule so that I could work from Smallville in foreseeable future, falsify about three years of paper trail and have all traces of kryptonite removed, at least from the penthouse; although I strangely like it here.'

'So do I,' Clark nodded, smiling fondly at his own numerous joyful memories of the place. 'How come the castle is not protected with kryptonite?'

"I had once told you you were always welcome here. Didn't want to go back on my word. Good thing I didn't,' Lex sighed contentedly, reaching out but not quite touching Conner's hand.

'Hey, how are you going to explain him?' Clark asked curiously.

'I'm not,' Lex shrugged. 'I won't have to,' he added hastily, before Clark could start imagining sordid scenarios of keeping the poor kid hidden till he was old enough to - what, go to school?

Clark, whose own exemplary parents must have done exactly that, come to think of it, was still staring at him incomprehensibly.

'One of the rules of successful lying you never managed to grasp,' Lex started in the tone he used to lecture teenage Clark on just about anything, 'is that people are far more inclined to believe their own conclusions - no matter how outlandish, than accept explanations provided by someone else - no matter how reasonable. If we don't want to attract undue attention, we don't need to scramble to cover all bases. We just need to stage it properly, especially as the timing is so fortunate.'

'Fortunate how?'

'There already are rumors of the grand reception I am planning to make a big announcement. Of course, it was going to be about LexCorp producing a medical wonder and finally breaking from LuthorCorp influence, but I still have time to make it a little less formal, a little more lavish and make it about celebrating my heir's birthday first and my major business victory, while we are at it. That way people won't wonder too much why I suddenly made such a huge bet on medical research, assuming it has something to do with the kid, and they won't wonder why I kept my son hidden, assuming it has something to do with miracle cure for brain damage. Actually, if you go as my date, given the medial emergency rumour which was never properly explained and your sudden reluctance to attack me through your articles, someone might just connect the dots and "guess" that discovering Conner’s problem reminded you of my human side and thus brought us back together; the public just needs to remember we used to be friends - we'll have to find a way to make an appearance in Talon, or something. Yes, this could work out perfectly. If only there was a way to take Superman's disappearance out of the equation - '

'Disappearance?'

'You are not planning to keep chasing petty criminals, leaving our superpowered son with an unsuspecting babysitter, are you?'

'Of course not, but what if - '

'It doesn't matter right now,' Lex yawned. 'Your spandex-clad ass hasn't been seen for a week, the damage is done. We'll have to deal with it separately. Go to sleep, will you? Or at least get under covers, it's cold.'

'I'm not cold, Lex,' Clark assured sincerely. 'Invulnerable, remember?'

With an exasperated sigh Lex held up a corner of his blanket in invitation anyway and pointedly intoned:

'I am.'

*******


	6. Bonus chapter THREE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Outsider POV on Clex going from hating one's best friend to loving one's sworn enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still don't like Lois Lane.  
> I don't really have an opinion on Oliver Queen, as I stopped watching "Smallville" long before he was introduced as a character, but in the context of this fic he hates Lex and is, therefore, kind of an asshole.  
> As for Bruce Wayne, as someone who likes the second worst Batman movie ever made, I apparently don't get a vote ;-)

*******

'I can see why you need him,' Lois Lane announced gleefully, as she discreetly made sure her recorder was still running. 'He is the only one truly capable of operating countrywide and, thanks to my timely intervention, he is the one looking out for "Truth, Justice and the American Way", while you', she nodded to the Robin Hood wannabe across the table, 'are seen as little more than a charismatic criminal, and you,' another nod to the giant bat in the other chair, 'have an unfortunate reputation of an unapproachable brooding dark knight on your personal little crusade. Plus, you are both humans, not even meta-humans, and the first thing the people will want to know is why, if you are so keen on fighting crime, you are not offering your services to the police or FBI. Yes, if you want this "Justice League" of yours to be seen as legal AND friendly force, Superman in charge is your best bet; but surely you know Superman is gone? Lex Luthor probably kidnapped him to get access to Kryptonian technologies. I haven't managed to find anything specific, the bastard is too good at "where is your legally acquired proof?" game, but how else did he come up with three groundbreaking innovations in five years? You know, if you could unleash some of your super-powered friends on him - '

'Superman is regularly seen at major natural disaster areas,' Green Arrow snorted sarcastically. 'He just doesn't stop for photos anymore.'

'And we are not here to talk about Lex Luthor,' Batman intervened smoothly. 'We need to find Clark Kent.'

'Clark Kent? You think _Clark_ would know something of Superman's whereabouts?'

'Well,' the Arrow's voice was now positively dripping with sarcasm, 'a man who shared Superman's general description, regularly reported Superman's international stints that you, as his unofficially official biographer, never mentioned, and who dropped off the face of the Earth roughly at the same time as Superman seems like a good place to start.'

Lois let out an incredulous laugh.

'Clark Kent can't be Superman. The results of facial recognition might be "inconclusive", but I've seen them both up close, and I'm telling you the similarity ends at them both being tall and dark-haired. Clark is a klutz who can't always button up his shirt right, let alone fly at supersonic speed. As for the rest, the Net is full of freaks watching and reporting Superman's every step: I only wrote about what truly matters. Finally, Superman hasn't been properly seen for years, but Clark Kent didn't disappear, he just doesn't go out much. Here. Look,' she scoffed and moved her laptop towards two puzzled superheroes.

*****

At first they didn’t quite understand what they were supposed to look at. The screen showed a page from what seemed to be a parenting forum: someone named Ophelia (completed with an avatar picture of a ragged blond sitting on the beach with two almost identical – and almost naked – toddlers playing in the sand), rambled long and hard that if her husband came from a broken home he didn’t get a vote in how their children were raised. And there, at the very bottom, after a long stream of useless “Hell, yeah!” and “Are you stupid?” comment there was the only substantial response.

 _“You know, I actually had the same – or should I say the opposite – problem,”_ someone named Kal_L wrote. His avatar showed a candid shot of a young dark-haired man in a deep burgundy shirt touching foreheads with a small child whose halo of copper curls conveniently obscured both their faces _. “L. has always believed my family is perfect, and the only thing to learn from his father is not to do things his way. But while L. hated the piano and could have used some real self-defense training instead of fencing, before I met him I literally had no idea there were things I could do with my life besides schoolwork and farm work. What I mean is, I did have a happy childhood, but still my parents did some things I would never inflict upon my own son; and although there is no doubt L.’s father shouldn’t have been allowed to raise a goldfish, L. has turned out brilliant. Of course, most of it is in spite, not because of his upbringing, but something must have been done right. Mostly, I want to say that every experience, positive or negative, is valuable and shouldn’t be discarded. There are more examples in my blog, if you are interested.”_

Oliver shrugged and clicked the link.

Kal_L’s blog, “Castle-in-the-Corn”, was very professionally done and very casual-looking. It was indeed full of long comprehensive articles about “raising a child of two worlds”: the constant need to compromise between knowing how to make your own bed or lunch and not making the servants uncomfortable by doing everything yourself, enjoying “normal” childhood and developing your unique talents, doing things you are good at and thing your social standing demands from you, learning the value of money and not feeling like you have to earn your keep. But there were also photos strategically mixed in to paint a picture of domestic bliss, and occasional reminiscences about life in Kal_L’s unnamed native town after the _first and the second_ meteor shower – which made you wonder if there were laws against such things and, if not, perhaps there should be.

*****

'I see,' Batman said slowly, carefully pushing the laptop away, ‘you don't think Superman would have ended up as Lex Luthor's life partner with a blog about gifted children, and believe all the evidence to the contrary to be coincidental.'

'In the contrary,' Lois hissed, 'I believe they planed it all.

'No one seems to remember it,' she continued with malicious glee, 'but Clark Kent met Lex Luthor at the tender age of fifteen and promptly became his so-called best friend. They were very public, very open and borderline indecent about it. Desiree Atkins, Luthor's first wife, tried to drive a wedge between them, and was promptly imprisoned for attempted murder, Clark Kent coincidentally being the one to catch her in the act, subdue and hand over to the police. A year later Clark runs away from home on the very same day Luthor leaves for his second honeymoon, and doesn't come back until Luthor does. Helen Bryce, who didn't get to properly be Mrs. Luthor even for a day, is sent packing never to be seen again.

'Then Lionel Luthor brings out the big guns, so Luthor-junior has to go back to family business and seemingly leave Clark behind. Except when time comes, a straight-B student with a glorious experience of spell-checking and typing up lunch menus for a school newspaper somehow wins a full scholarship to study journalism in Metropolis University.

'Clark's first major assignment for the Planet was some plant that LuthorCorp either built or closed, and we all pitied him, because there were the usual concerns about the environmental impact, and "what about all those people?", etc, but we all knew that LuthorCorp was that big ugly dragon the people of Metropolis made their sacrifices to, so that it would keep their jobs safe, and there was no use complaining about it. But Clark didn't complain, he wrote that brilliant piece oozing sadness and disappointment, where he made the plant look like Lex Luthor's personal neglected responsibility, and, guess what, it turned out the people of Metropolis liked to hate the Luthor heir. After he started spewing anti-alien propaganda and challenging Superman directly, they basically hailed him their own living and breathing misguided antihero. The planet couldn't fail to document their epic battle in detail, and we didn't notice how every time we reported Superman discover some nefarious plot we also had to print Luthor's quotes about working for the humanity's best interest his alien nemesis couldn't possibly understand. We also didn't notice that Lex, not Lionel Luthor had become the true embodiment of LuthorCorp. When Superman disappeared before he could stop the release of so-called brain-damage treatment, people who had had years of reading about LuthorCorp's mistakes as Lex Luthor's personal failures happily saw soon-to-be LexCorp's triumph as Lex Luthor's personal success.'

'Interesting,' Batman said, not sounding interested at all. 'But I assume, if you could prove any of this, you would have run the story by now.'

'I have proof,' Lois grimaced, 'most of it is not even a secret.' She plugged a flash drive into the laptop and brought up a scan of an old 'Local boy saves Luthor Heir' newspaper article completed with a photo of two shivering young men staring at each other intently. 'The problem is, unless I can clearly link Luthor to Superman's disappearance, my story reads as a fairy tale about an exiled prince and his knight in shining armour who saw him through years of trials and tribulations till they could vote the old evil king off the Board and belatedly announce the birth of their heir in their freaking ancestral castle!' She switched the image on her screen to the one of Lex Luthor addressing a ballroom full of guests, Clark Kent a solid presence half a step behind, shamelessly gorgeous in what must be a custom-made tuxedo, carefully shielding little Conner from camera flashes. 'This would never have happened while Superman was still around to keep Luthor in check.   And, traumatised third-world children claiming to have been dug out from under their earthquake- or otherwise demolished homes by a super-strong guy in weird clothes aside, Superman went from patrolling Metropolis nightly to not being seen for years; and, judging by how eagerly the Luthors are investing into what is essentially a private police force, I bet they know for sure the crime-fighting alien is not coming back.'

'The real problem is not that Superman is missing,' Green Arrow interjected, 'the problem is no one is looking for him. You know what, perhaps we should do it. Make Superman a member in absentia and start investigating on the Justice League's behalf. It's bound to draw attention, it'll clearly show why we are not the police and if we get to bring down Luthor on the way, so much the better.'

'All right, we'll look into it,' Batman agreed reluctantly, 'but let me remind you that the only evidence against Luthor we can truly consider is suspicious timing. Superman is an alien with no known connection to Earth, let alone the USA. He might have gotten bored and left. He might have borrowed a page from an old si-fy novel and succumbed to some mundane virus. Or he might - .'

'Or,' an inhumanely flat voice cracked from the dynamic of Lois's laptop, as a magnificent picture of glittering white crystal structure blossomed on the screen, 'he might not want to be found. Cease and desist, mortals!'

Lois hastily yanked the flash drive out and hit the power button, but it was too late: the rebooted laptop was back to basic settings, and the flash drive morosely read 'no files found'.

*******

******

*****

**END**


End file.
